The Paralyzing Precautionary Principle
On March 4, 2003, the Bay Area Working Group on the Precautionary Principle (BAWG) celebrated what they termed their first victory when San Francisco passed the “San Francisco Precautionary Principle Resolution.” Just over two years later, in June of 2005, San Francisco passed the Precautionary Purchasing Ordinance. This law requires the city to consider environmentally “safer” alternatives to everything from toilet paper to computers. Literally anything the city purchases must be examined first according to the “precautionary principle” before it can be purchased.
The precautionary principle basically says if an action or policy might cause harm to the environment, then even if there is no proof the action will cause harm the burden of proof is on those advocating the action to prove the action would not be harmful.
BAWG, incidentally, defines itself as:
A diverse collaborative of individuals and organizations who are dedicated to protecting health and the environment. We recognize that fundamental changes in decision-making need to happen in order to build healthier, more just, and sustainable communities.
The attendant article on Wikipedia states:
This principle allows policy makers to make discretionary decisions in situations where there is evidence of potential harm in the absence of complete scientific proof. The principle implies that there is a social responsibility to protect the public from exposure to harm, when scientific investigation has found a plausible risk. These protections can be relaxed only if further scientific findings emerge that provide sound evidence that no harm will result.
In the European Union, the application of this principle has been made a statutory requirement.
There are a few problems with this approach where environmental policy is concerned. First, it is impossible to prove a negative. You cannot, for example, prove that something does not exist, only that it does or that it has not been observed. Second, and perhaps more importantly, the principle is generally used to deny an action, but rarely is it used to examine the converse. That is, would more harm be caused by not taking the proposed action than would be caused by taking it? The biggest issue, of course, is that the principle is more often than not used for ideological purposes rather than actual scientific ones.
I find it strange that these folks never think of the precautionary principle when it comes to social issues. Look at the catastrophes they have caused with things like high-rise public housing and educational innovations. My own definition of a precautionary approach is to go slowly, monitor constantly, and correct as needed. In the leftist world that brands you as a heretic.
I have had run ins with progressives trying to impose the precautionary principle with regard to pesticide use going back a decade or so. Once upon a time, I believed that it was the holy grail of the progressive agenda. If only I knew…
You do learn as you grow older, don’t you?
Such groups are hardly good at “saying nay,”
but rather at blowing things up:
http://www.apsu.edu/oconnort/3410/3410lect05.htm
Environmental racism is the claim by idiots that companies deliberatly choose to put polluting industries in minority areas rather than white areas.
Like all other idiot claims, evidence is not needed to prove the charge. The charge itself constitutes proof.
The precautionary principle is used by those who in reality want no progress to be made, but are smart enough to realize how luddite that position sounds.
Will somebody tell me how the environmental left acquired so much power over the poltical left? How did the environmental left get the power to control what the future of America will be?
Some will answer that they are one in the same. Then how come we have not taken to heart the saying,” green on the outside and red on the inside?” Again the left knew that in order to control America, they would need to control the means of energy and production. And we let them have it.
The reason is that the two groups share identical memberships.
>>Will somebody tell me how the environmental left acquired so much power over the poltical left? How did the environmental left get the power to control what the future of America will be? <<
It's a default position handed to them by the far right. The GOP has never been good at distancing itself from the anti-science bible minority ("the base" according to some) that protests teaching evolution, stem cell research, etc. Many centrists who would otherwise not vote with the left are persuaded to do so due to the successful associating (by the left) of the right wing majority with the far right. Far too many "left wing" voters seem to be unable to grasp the difference between these groups.
(And as a corollary note that most on the right are unable to distinguish between eco-fascists and moderate/centrist left wing voters — socially liberal, fiscally moderate types who don't buy into eco-silliness.)
99% of the problem can be fixed if the GOP drops the culture warrior planks.
I see GL is letting his paranoid hatred of anyone who disagrees with him do his thinking for him again.
Only a few percent of conservatives believe in Creationism.
The type of stem cell research that the left has been pushing has never worked. There are stem cells that have been successfully used in many cures. Adult stem cells, and conservatives have never opposed their use.
One of these days GL will say something truthfull, today isn’t that day.
(And as a corollary note that most on the right are unable to distinguish between eco-fascists and moderate/centrist left wing voters — socially liberal, fiscally moderate types who don’t buy into eco-silliness.)
Where are they Mr.Alston? Why are they not standing up? Rhetorical question of course, I have and am still doing extensive research on the radical Gaiaists who are the heart and soul of the “green” movement. They do not stand up, if they truly exist, because they are afraid to. Why? Because to do so is to have your life and/or livelihood threatened. These people will destroy your good name, threaten your family, whatever it takes to shut you up. Frighteningly similar to the tactics of Stalinist/Leninist movements and the Islamist “movement.”
It’s not about the environment Mr. Alston. It’s about control, wake up.
Patrick
They do not stand up, if they truly exist, because they are afraid to. Why? Because to do so is to have your life and/or livelihood threatened.
The average democrat voter feels his life is threatened? Seriously? The average democrat voter doesn’t know who Paul Ehrlich is any moreso than the average republican does. This explains why:
http://fredoneverything.net/Commentators.shtml
I think Patrick was speaking of those with the capacity and influence to “stand up”, G.L. Those folks will indeed be attacked by the extreme left. Thanks very much for the link to Fred, by the way. It’s not too often you hear someone tell it the way it is. Some are just plain born to be dishwashers, truck drivers and such.
This is puzzling… isn’t the precautionary principle simply another form of prior restraint, which was historically shot down in the courts? Maybe I’m overgeneralizing, but now we also have “hate crime laws”, which again seems to be prior restraint under another guise. How have progressives managed to insinuate these abominations into the legal landscape? Where are Conservative legal think tanks, and why haven’t they created a sound legal approach with which to fight this?
Social Justice, Economic Justice, Environmental Justice, etc., are all just euphemisms for Marxism and Communism. Anyone championing these various “justices” are Communists.
I’ve been spending night after night going down the rabbit hole of the environmental movement. The precautionary principal is only the beginning of the nuttiness of the greens. The rabbit hole is deep and dark and leads to depopulation.
Trust me, these people are crazy.
Patrick
Agreed. The “deep-ecology” movement is essentially the John Muir branch of the environmentalist mental universe. Muir, most people do not remember, was a primitivist who considered the small towns of the small United States of his day as a “blight” on the natural world, and often railed against civilization as a whole. From this comes the view of the “deep-ecos” that any human presence in the “natural world” destroys same- except for their own, perfect, “enlightened” selves, of course.
The deep-eco crowd would be delighted to wipe most of humanity off the face of the earth, if they could figure out some way to survive the process. (You know you’re in trouble when you’re dealing with people who actually liked Stephen King’s “The Stand”, as I have often found in that lot.) You can’t really call them “prejudiced”, in that it isn’t any one “group” they dislike, just humanity as a whole.
And their attitudes affect the so-called “mainstream” environmental movement, as well. This is why you hear supposedly sane environmental “gurus” claiming that “Man is not a part of Nature”, “All Man does is destroy Nature”, etc.
It is also why most environmentalist policy initiatives seem to operate on the principle of “How many people can we punish for existing?”
These are not stable, or particularly sane, people.
clear ether
eon
This is what gives environmentalism a bad rap. For example, the new RoHS (Reduction of Hazardous Substances) regulations from the EU require that lead be removed from common solder used in electronic equipment. The problem is that without at least a small amount of lead, the solder will grow very tiny whiskers (usually made of tin) that can short out equipment. These whiskers can take about three years to form. Thus, we have instant obsolescence. By the way, this phenomenon was well known since World War II, and it is why solder had lead in it in the first place.
Now RoHS regulations in Europe do allow for certain applications that require high reliability to apply for exceptions. So one company did. They were making 20 year lifetime LED lighting. They wanted an exception for the very best of all reasons: to save energy and thus “be kind to the environment.” Nobody would commit to giving them their exemption. They are breaking the law by producing this lighting system in that country.
This is wrong. We are environmentalizing ourselves in to a corner where we can not do anything to extricate ourselves without breaking our own self imposed regulations. The people who make this stuff up mean well. But that doesn’t help when they keep getting in the way of those who are trying to actually solve a real problem.
Environment conservation is too damned serious an issue to leave to the Environmentalists. We need real technical know-how and experience to make reasonable regulations. But given how little environmentalists know about modern industry, most companies don’t trust these people. And because these environmentalists don’t fully understand why we are doing the things we do in the first place, they don’t trust industry.
This idiocy has to stop if we are to make any improvement.
Reminds me of the reason why Columbia was lost.
The enviro-nuts demanded that CFC’s no longer be used in the insulation used to cover the exterior tank.
With the old formula, there was never a problem with chunks coming off the tank during launch.
With the first launch that used the new formula, massive chunks started coming off of the tanks. The really sad thing is that NASA never even asked for an exemption to go back to the old formula.
“Trust me, these people are crazy.”
They are worse than crazy. They are vicious, evil misanthropes. Don’t believe me? Check out the juicy quotes toward the end of this article from the Ayn Rand Center: http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=objectivism_environmentalism.
Anyway, nice article.
Oops — actually that article is from the Ayn Rand *Institute*. But the Ayn Rand Center (a division of the Institute) has a bunch more articles on the subject here: http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=media_topic_environmentalism_and_animal_rights.
The precautionary principle is a logical paradox. If we must always apply the precautionary principle then we should apply it to the precautionary principle itself. How do we know that applying the precautionary principle won’t cause massive harm? Therefore, according to the precautionary principle, the precautionary principle should never be applied to anything.
The precautionary principle is nothing more than a perpetual excuse behind which the powers that be can exert their will without having to come up with a logical and/or truthful rationale for their decisions. To the extent its actually used it is done in a most selective manner that seems to dovetail with the political aims of its proponents. What a coincidence.
The “precautionary principle” has been a primary gambit of the left for the last half-century, and not just on the environment.
if you look at the left’s determination to ban almost anything- guns, cars, nuclear power, private enterprise, the death penalty, even defunding space exploration- sooner or later you run into this refrain;
“If it saves even one life”
The idea being that everything is worth saving a single “life”. While many of us might agree, the result is inevitably a reductio ad absurdem argument that gives the left the “moral high ground”- from which they oppress everyone else.
Ban guns, and it “saves lives”. Because criminals no longer have to worry about being shot by their intended victims. As for the victims, see below.
Ban the death penalty for murder? Again, saves criminals’ lives. For the victims, see below.
Ban nuclear power? May save a life here or there, but inflicts suffering on the rest of us who have to pay high energy prices and may have to freeze in the winter- see below.
Ban oil use? Same deal- see below.
Now we’re at “below”. Where, when you point out (as gently as you can through gritted teeth) that the “saving of one life” is inflicting a Hell of a lot of misery on everybody else, the leftists simply look at you with that messianic glaze in their eyes, and say,
“Sacrifices must be made in the name of the Cause!”
Wash, rinse, and repeat. No matter what the subject, the game is always played the same. And to the left, the game is always named “Let’s Hurt Everybody Else”.
clear ether
eon
Like virtually everything else in the enviromental agenda, the “precautionary principle” is a political strategy aimed at acquiring and maintaining power. Such a strategy strategy guarantees the primacy of the regulators over everything else and increases the political power of whatevery entity enforces that principle. In effect it means that any and all forms technological or engineering advance must go through a bureaucratic filtration process that is wildly arbitrary and completely subjective. The underlying purpose is to control the future by contrlling what is an what is not potentially “harmful to the environment.” As we know it is possible to define virtually ANYTHING in the world as “potentially harmful to the environment” (take human bodily functions for example) so therefore everything has to regulated. This, once again, confirms what I always say about the ecology crowd – Inside every progressive “green” is a totalitiarian control-freak just screaming to get out.
The article refers only to one version of the “precautionary principle” used by the moonbats. The other way they apply it is for doing things like justifying cr^Hap and tax. “An action should be taken even if there is no scientific evidence that it will solve the problem”. A brainwashed left can literally hold both versions in their head at the same time! What amazing creatures they are.
Typical of the uneducated social studies left in America.
It is mathematically proven that it is impossible to prove a negative.
So any proposal must pass since it can’t be PROVED that it has a negative impact.
Where the hell were the teachers the last 50 years besides at sex, drugs and rock’n'roll parties?
Fire them all and their 10 “education administrators” they have to every one “teacher”.
Sorry. “…since it can’t be PROVED that it does not have a negative impact.”
Interestingly, either is true.
Wonderful! It’s amazing how a re-labeling and re-marketing of a childhood story can sway so many people. The Precautionary Principle is nothing more than the beliefs of the barnyard animals in Chicken Little.
The far left has dedicated themselves to winning in the courts. If you want to cut a tree or dig a hole they can take you to court to stop it. Where we/you have gone wrong is our belief that courts serve up justice. They do not, they make law just as surely as though they are elected legislators. What we need to do is take the left to court on everything and every time. If they want to stop a private person, company or city from doing something because of some claimed environmental effect then we need to take them to court and argue that NOT doing it is harmful to the environment and seek damages from the left because their frivolous use of the courts have prevented actions to protect the environment etc. If you don’t fight them tooth and nail in the courts and in the streets eventually you will even lose the right to fight them at all.
When apply the precautionary principle to itself and asking could more harm or good come out of its use, the answer is glaringly obvious inasmuch that chance for misuse is gargantuan!
If any risk, stop. If evidence is inconclusive, stop absolutely. If no proof, stop anyway. The prudent “Better safe than sorry” is perverted to mean “Safe sorrow for all!” Very convenient tool to use when and ideology is hell-bent on foisting its agenda. Hard to prove the consequence of the non-existent.